Just when you thought it was safe to come out of the root cellar, along comes Grainstorm, a big, wet wallop to the senses. In the glass, dark and turbulent clouds gather. A high-pressure system of pungent hops collides with a stationary front of barley, wheat, and rye. The forecast: a veritable monsoon of flavor, with surges of roasty malt, microbursts of hops, and a chance of golfball-sized hail. The extended outlook calls for unseasonably pleasant enjoyment.

Reviews by estlinska:

Served in a tulip at The Saucer on 4/3/13. Pours a deep, light devouring black into the glass with not many other hues to it. It has a good tannish head with tons of tiny bubbles that leaves good, sticky, thick lacing all over the glass. The smell was full of powerful hops. There was tons of oily, resinous citrus on the nose, which I absolutely love, but I felt like the malt was a little overpowered. I pick up a bit of roasted coffee and maybe some charred cookie in the background, but it is totally eaten alive by the hops. As I taste the beer it starts with the bitter malt and some roasted coffee and brown sugar. This flavor flows seemlessly into the spicy character of the rye malt. Then at the peak of the performance is the flavorful hops: there is mango and oranges especially there. It's a very fluid expression of several very good flavors that just work well together. Mouthfeel is characterized by good carbonation levels and a nice body overall. As usual, I am very impressed overall with the quality of the Smokestack series by Boulevard, even while largely disliking most of their regular offerings. This beer was a good strong offering. The only detriment I placed was in the nose because I feel like a Black IPA should have a little more of the dark malts present (as this is what "separates" it from a regular IPA/DIPA). That is simply a "style" thing, but overall I loved this beer. (1,406 characters)

More User Reviews:

Pours a deep roasted chesnut brown with a large blooming light beige colored head atop that takes forever to settle leaving a nice full ring behind.Resiny hops stand out most in the nose along with a shot of spicy rye,not much roast.Quite dry on the palate with a healthy dose of citric/resiny hops,there is a sharpness from the rye but it's not in your face,somewhat grainy and earthy but not a whole lot of roast.A well hopped ABA that doesn't have alot of the "black" components,still a nice beer. (500 characters)

Explosive pour into a tulip from 750 ml corked & caged bottle.Massive four finger head in spite of my best efforts to pour carefully.Dark appearance brown foam holds nicely for a long timeVery smooth malty feel up front. Full hop flavors don't appear until after way into the mouthfeel phase. Very enjoyable beer. Very easy to sip through an entire bottle without realizing it. (381 characters)

Overall: I love Boulevard and the style, but this one just did not do it for me. The char is heavy on this one and sometimes the rye added a slightly medicinal quality to it. Not a horrible beer by any stretch but there are several others in the style I would go to first. This one was a miss for me. (574 characters)